MILITARY CHECKPOINTS AS MARKET PLACEAS MARKET PLACE

Military or security checkpoints are distinguishable from border or frontier checkpoints in that they (checkpoints) are erected and enforced within contiguous areas under military control. Military checkpoints have been employed within conflict-ridden areas all over the country or state to monitor and control movement of people and materials in order to prevent violence. In Borno State, since the terrorists (Boko Haram jihadists) bombings in Maiduguri, they are widely seen across all over the Borno State capital, especially at entrance and exit points of the city.

In Borno State military checkpoints are almost everywhere due to the insecurity in the state, since 2009. But now the military checkpoints are gradually turning into market places where buying and selling take place. It is now very difficult for a traveller and motorists to identify military checkpoints because by mere observation the checkpoints are filled with many people especially children (hawkers) selling things to motorists and passengers; one can also find minors and disabled people begging around the checkpoints without knowing the risk or negative effects of staying close to them.

Now for every group of ter- rorists planning to invade a city or town must first pass through military checkpoint. That is where the issue of militant attacking and bombing military checkpoints occurred.

In April 2017, there was reported military checkpoint attacked by some suspected Boko Haram jihadists where they killed a soldier outside Maiduguri. Also two-male suicide bombers denoted their explosives at a checkpoint in Dalori, a village on the outskirts of Maiduguri near a camp for internally displaced people. At the same time, other militants opened fire on the checkpoint, killing a soldier and injuring a policeman. Now think of what will happen or how the result will be if the checkpoint was full of people, especially children and minors when the militant attacked the checkpoint.

Military checkpoints are erected purposely to control how people enter a city or leave so that security personnel (be it governmental or civilian) can screen entrants to identify troublemakers (be they criminals, terrorists or simple rabble-rousers) and locate contraband items, and not for the gathering of people who will engage in selling and begging.